A great entrepreneur can come from anywhere

There’s a Pixar movie that captures the ethos of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurship culture which it summarizes this way:

While not everyone can be a great chef, a great chef can come from anywhere

The magic of the valley is that there is no path, no formula, no stencil for how to be successful. There is no university one must attend, no incubator one must join, no technology one must master to be successful. Every entrepreneur has a different route to their successes.

But I do think there is one common element among entrepreneurs: an open mind - a mind receptive to new ideas, new people, new disruptions, new pivots and new ways of challenging commonly assumed precepts.

Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki said it best in his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind:

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.

Anyone can have an open mind, a beginner’s mind - so a great entrepreneur can come from anywhere.